


Across the Pond

by mrstaemin (TheTroninator)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Mavin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-29 11:45:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTroninator/pseuds/mrstaemin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael hates summer camp; his parents force him to go every year. But this summer he meets someone new who might make him want to stay at camp forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Bus

Over the pond (which everyone refers to as a lake), the sun begins setting on the first night of camp, casting its orange, red and purple hues into the rippling waters. Camp Foxwood Lake, famous for its beautiful sunsets and crappy mess hall food, certainly lives up to expectations this night. Michael is not happy though, his stomach turning.

He never wanted to come here at all. His parents said it would be good for him “to go out and do some real activities this summer, instead of sitting inside playing video games and getting chubby.” But what’s wrong with that, Michael wonders, sitting out on the dock, dipping his toes into the moving water beneath him. Maybe it was an okay idea when it was first conceived several summers ago, except Foxwood activities include paddle boating and swimming in the greenish brown pond water, making lanyards, and dying of heat stroke, and in comparison to video games, those activities suck. And they suck even more when you’ve been subjected to them for four consecutive summers. 

He always imagined as a kid that camp would be like in the Parent Trap or Heavy Weights (before Tony Perkis took over), but no. It was never as cool as Hollywood would like you to believe. Sure some kids have fun, but they are the super-social kids who could have fun talking to a stump. The ones who make friends always dread leaving, but Michael’s been at camp for several years he has never made even one new friend. 

Across the pond, Michael observes other docks: the one for the Fat Camp, the one for Jock Camp, and the one for Sad Camp. Sad Camp sucks even worse than the Generic Camp of which Michael is technically a part. That particular camp is known as Sad Camp by all the other Foxwood camps, because it’s for kids whose parents can’t afford one of the other camps, or who are depressed, or who have cancer, or who don’t have parents at all. The specific demographic changes every month. 

Michael’s heard that Jock Camp will have cheerleaders soon and that sort of excites him, because they all share the pond, so maybe he’ll see some bikinis or something other than all the dudes and nerdy chicks at Generic Camp. 

He hears footsteps on the dock behind him. “I can’t wait to get out of this shit hole,” a deep-for-a-sixteen-year-old voice states. 

Michael recognizes the voice quickly as belonging to his long-time friend, Ray. He pats the dock next to him. “As soon as we get out of here, you’re coming over and we’re playing X-Box,” Michael promises, glancing to his right as his dark-haired friend sits down and takes off his shoes. 

Ray dips his toes in the water and smirks. “We’re totally going to get a foot fungus from this.”

“Shut up and enjoy the sunset, you asshole.” Michael playfully punches Ray’s arm. 

“You think the cheerleaders will be here soon?” Ray wonders, rubbing his arm. 

“I always feel like we get lied to,” Michael admits. “Like the counselors probably do it.” Michael deepens his voice to pretend like he’s one of the twenty-somethings running the camp. “‘Yeah, let’s tell the little shits that hot girls are coming tomorrow, but it’ll just be band camp. That’ll kill their little boners.’” 

Ray laughs and plays along. “‘And their spirits, and that what really counts.’” He glances around to the docks, too. “I think new Sad Campers should be arriving soon, too,” Ray added, in his normal voice. 

“Man, I hate the Sad Campers,” Michael groaned. “It’s like a dark grey fog of depression descends on the lake and swallows up any of our remaining joy whenever they show up.” 

“The Fat Campers usually make up for the sadness, in my opinion,” Ray confesses. “I like those guys. They always have the best food.”

“You know it’s all smuggled in, right?” 

“But at least they’re kind enough to share.”

“It’s because the football players from Jock Camp threaten to turn them in if they don’t.”

“Ah, just gotta love classic summer camp blackmail,” Ray sighs nostalgically, pushing his glasses up his nose. 

Behind the two boys, the loud sound of the warning horn rings out, telling campers that it’s nearly lights out. By this time, the sun has set and the water is reflecting the moon rather than the rainbow of colors that first greeted them. 

“Guess we’d better get back to Barracuda,” Michael mumbles. All the cabins at Generic Camp are named after animals this year. The older kids (tenth through twelfth grade) get sea animals, the middlers (eighth and ninth grade) get land animals, and the young kids (sixth and seventh grade) get flying animals. The camp can never seem to make up its mind though, and the theme changes every year. It used to simply be colors, then it was precious minerals, and last year it was patriotic terms like “Brotherhood,” and “Liberty.” (“Only in Texas,” Ray had mumbled upon seeing his assignment in the “Freedom” Cabin). Despite there being three grades represented in the Sea Creatures category, they were the most outnumbered group of kids. This was likely due to most senior high schoolers being able to convince their parents they had out grown camp. And so only an unfortunate few were left by the age of fifteen. Michael and Ray were a part of that pathetic group. 

The only benefit to being an older kid at camp is that the counselors pretty much leave you alone. When you realize the people running the camp are young enough to be your brother or sister, you lose respect for them. Also, the older you get, the easier it is to detect that someone has been smoking weed. So classic camp blackmail comes into play and BAM the older kids can get away with whatever they want with the counselors as long as they get back to their cabin before the counselors get back to theirs.

As Ray and Michael mosey back to the cabin holding their shoes, they watch as the sobered up counselors guide the younger kids back into their cabins and roll their eyes. Michael snickers as he sees one counselor telling a kid off for wearing a shirt with a pot leaf on it, knowing that he’d seen that same counselor sharing a bong with some softball player from Jock Camp last summer.

Just as they enter their swelteringly hot cabin, Ray sighs in exasperation. “I can’t wait for those cheerleaders.” 

The next day, Michael decides to eat his breakfast of toast and jam outside the mess hall on a picnic bench and Ray joins him shortly thereafter. 

“Watchin’ for the bus?” Ray asks, spraying toast out in front of him.

“Kinda,” Michael admits. “It’s so damn boring here. It’ll be the most excitement to come all week.”

Faintly, in the distance, Michael can hear a puttering sound, like an engine. “Yes!” Michael cheers. Then, over the hill, he can see a yellow bus. But instead of turning right toward Jock Camp, it turns left to Sad Camp. “No!” Michael boos. He can barely read the name on the side of the bus from across the lake. It says “Hope,” in a gross scrawl. Then the kids begin to disembark with their duffle bags and suitcases. A few ladies and one man step off after them. For the most part they look like basic, normal kids though. They’re not in all black, they’re not wheeling IVs after them, no wheelchairs, and no casts from what Ray and Michael can tell.

A counselor strides up beside the two of them, holding forbidden-to-campers coffee. “Orphans,” he states. Michael turns to his left and sees the counselor. It’s Ryan, one of the older ones. “Sad shit, huh?” Then he walks away.

“That Ryan guy always kinda gives me the creeps,” Ray whispers. 

“Pretty sure he’s an axe murderer,” Michael agrees. 

Ray perks up slightly. “Well, I’m glad they’re just orphans and it’s not Eating Disorder Camp.”

Michael shrugs. “Let’s go to the dock and get a closer look at them?” 

“Sure.”

The two boys half-jog to their hangout spot and lean out to try and catch a glimpse of the campers. 

“Well, they’re not cheerleaders,” Ray states. 

Michael’s eyes follow one particular camper who seems to be struggling with carrying his suitcases and walking at the same time. He trips and face-plants. Michael starts cackling. 

Ray sees the kid trying to stand back up, too. “Oh geez, he bit it.”

“Come on, Ray,” Michael encourages. “Let’s sneak into their camp and meet the face-plant kid.”

Ray shakes his head. “No way. You know how much I hate meeting people.”

The trees around the lake make a cage for the camps and Michael figures nothing bad could happen as long as they stay in the clearing. “Come on, it’s not like you actually have to exert that much effort; there’s a path and everything.”

“Nope,” Ray refuses, turning back toward Barracuda, his Vans shoes squeaking on the sanded wood dock as he does. “I’ll be in the cabin with my DS if you need me.”

“You’re such a loser,” Michael hisses at him. “I’ll see you later.”

Michael leaves the dock and circles around to the right of the pond. Sad Camp is the closest camp to Generic Camp, so the walk takes only five minutes before Michael is there. No one seems to notice that he’s on the camp ground, so he walks around curiously, having never ventured out this way before. He’d never wanted to before. The Sad Campers were usually the kinds of kids you wanted to leave alone to their therapy and rehabilitation. But this year, Michael feels like he could probably befriend one of them. They couldn’t possibly be as miserable and stuck-up as the Generic Campers.

Their camp surprisingly looks the same as his, with the same cruddy mess hall and same kind of cabins (but with names like “Change” and “Passion”). It, however, is littered with a considerable amount of motivational posters. It takes a few minutes of wandering before someone finally notices him. “Hey!” a voice shouts at him. 

Michael snaps around to see a kid with dust on his pants and fly-away hair standing there looking at him with his hands on his hips wearing baggy cargo pants.

“You weren’t on the bus,” the kid notes, oddly enough, with a British accent.

“Hey, you’re the face-plant kid!” Michael replies excitedly, recognizing him, taking note of his big nose and smooth skin. “I came over here to meet you in person. I’m a big fan of your work.” 

His sarcasm met a baffled audience. “Wha-What?” the kid stuttered, his face reddening. 

“I’m at the camp there,” Michael explained, gesturing to the Generic campground. “I watched you walk off the bus and trip.”

“Oh… Well, I’m not always so clumsy. It’s just my bags were heavy, you know?” 

“Well, you sure don’t look big enough to carry them. What do you weigh? Like 108?”

The boy kinda scoffed and chuckled at once. “What’re you called?”

Michael smiled back at him. “What am I called? I’m called Michael.”

The boy smirked crookedly. “Well, I’m Gavin.”

“Well, I guess it’s nice to meet you, Gavin,” Michael says, a sardonic tone still painting his voice.

Gavin looks away to the ground behind him. “I think I should get going and…uh… unpack?” 

“This your first time to camp?” Michael asks, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jean shorts.

Gavin nods shyly.

“You’re, like, what, 15? Why’ve you not come to camp before?” He can sense that Gavin wants to walk away, but he came all this way to meet him, so he might as well talk.

“I’m actually sixteen,” Gavin informs him, avoiding the other question.

“Me too,” Michael says cheerfully. “Anyway, I guess… I might see you around?”

Gavin looks at Michael inquisitively. “You want to see me around?”

Michael stutters a bit. “Well—uh, I guess, you know? Same pond and all.”

“Then I’ll see you,” Gavin agrees with a nod, his floppy hair flopping. 

Michael watches as he walks with long strides toward a cabin called “Importance” and calls out to him, “Hey! Welcome to Foxwood!” 

Gavin turns around and Michael can just barely see a toothy and lopsided grin forming on the skinny kid’s face. 

Michael scoffs. “Stupid Brit.”


	2. On the Lake

Arriving back at his cabin, Michael is confronted by Ray, who has no doubt been playing with his DS since Michael left. “Did you meet the kid?” Ray asks, not looking up from his game. 

“Yeah, I did,” Michael confirms. 

“How’d it go?” 

Michael flops onto his bunk. “Seemed kind of shy, dorky maybe. Oh! And get this: he’s British.” 

“No way! That’s weird.” Ray gets a scrunched up kind of expression on his face and grunts. “Damn this level!” 

“Yeah, well, I told him I’d see him around, so maybe you can meet him?” Michael asks hopefully, knowing how anti-social Ray likes to be.

“Ooh. ‘I’ll see you around’? Sounds like you’ve taken an interest,” Ray teases. 

“Shut up. Will you be friendly if you happen to meet him?” 

“Of course. They don’t call me Good Guy Ray for nothing.” 

Michael deadpans, “No one calls you that.”

“Well they should—Dammit!” Ray is shaking his DS. 

Michael rolls his eyes and lays face down into his pillow and decides to stay like that until lunch. Meals are the only things that offer a break from the monotony of Camp Foxwood Lake. You can only go paddle boating so many times in your life before it starts to get boring and Michael’s already made a few lanyards. Ray doesn’t even bother. He just plays his DS and sits on the dock for “fun.”

Lunch passes by and the afternoon comes sailing along. Michael and Ray decide to go sit on the dock and play Would You Rather. 

“Would you rather have to go to camp every summer until you die, or remain a virgin until you’re thirty two?” Ray asks.

“What makes you think I’m a virgin?” Michael asks, playing at being offended.

Ray gives him a knowing, smug smirk. 

“Well, if I keep going to this camp every year until I die, I’ll probably never find someone willing to bang me,” Michael replies finally. He cringes. “I guess I’ll take being a thirty two year old virgin.”

Ray laughs and shakes his head. “God, that’s sad.”

Suddenly, Michael sees something over the horizon and slaps Ray’s arm. “Ray look, it’s another bus!” He sees it turn right toward Jock Camp. “Is it…?”

“The cheerleaders!” Ray sings.

The Fat Campers have all walked out of the mess hall, Michael sees. They must have heard the rumor, too. It’s as though the entirety of Camp Foxwood Lake is holding its breath, the creepy counselors included, to see if there will be cheerleaders stepping off of the bus. Michael leans forward as much as possible without losing his balance (or his glasses) and falling into the water below him, holding a hand over his eyes to get a better look.

He sees a small sneakered foot hit the dirt, followed by a muscular yet feminine leg. Could it really be? Yes. It is. Several fit teenage girls bounce off of the bus, their ponytails swaying behind them while they carry their duffle bags that are the color of their respective schools. Finally, campers that don’t suck.

Ray is nodding slowly, smiling like an idiot. “There is a God,” he murmurs, his voice higher than usual as though he is about to cry tears of joy. 

Michael lies back on the dock, putting a hand over his chest. “Oh, dear me.”

The next morning, Michael finds himself waking up much earlier than usual, perhaps due to the excitement of the newest arrivals at the camp? He glances around the room. Ray is asleep on his bed, his DS lying open on his chest. Michael looks above him at the kid called Caleb on the top bunk. He’s asleep, too. He gets out of the bed, pulling a clean shirt over his head. He glances into their “cabin counselor’s” room. Jack is sleeping also, his ginger beard bobbing. Michael’s usually never the first one awake and he briefly contemplates pranking his roommates before deciding to go outside to the dock to see if the sunrise looks as nice as the sunset. 

The answer is that it doesn’t, but Michael still enjoys the view, chewing on a pop tart that a Fat Camper had given to Caleb the day before. Caleb wasn’t as close to Michael as Ray, but he had been coming to camp for many years now with them since Michael invited him once. Camps is a way for Caleb to avoid hearing his mother complain about how he could be so popular at school if he’d just quit with the video games. So they have formed a kind of understanding to all stay in the same cabin every summer. Michael reclines, hoping to see some cheerleaders paddle boating their way to the Generic Camp dock, asking him if he could show them to the famous “make-out point.” Of course, Michael has never been, but he could make an educated guess or ask Jack.

The horn sounds behind him, indicating that breakfast is served. Michael decides to go despite having already eaten a pop tart to see if he can convince Jack to get him some coffee. The mission fails, but he meets up with Ray there who asks where he was this morning. Michael replies that he was at the dock. 

“You think they’ll be paddle boating today?” Ray wonders, chomping on a burnt waffle.

“I hope.” 

Jack sits down at the table, making a show of sipping his coffee. “Hey, how are my favorite campers?” he asks cutely. “Did you see those cheerleaders yesterday? Looks like you guys are going to have a lot of fun at the Foxwood dance this year, huh?”

“Oh, shit, I forgot all about that!” Michael spits. “I usually hate that thing, but…”

Ray waggles his eyebrows, fully understanding Micahel’s train of thought. “I’ll still probably not go, though,” Ray admits. 

“Why?” Jack inquires.

Ray shrugs with a sad smile. “Too shy, ya know.”

Jack nods understandingly. “I hear ya, buddy. Well, have a good day, guys.” Jack leaves the table, patting it as he walks away. 

Later that day, Michael sits on the dock, weaving another stupid lanyard since he’s got nothing better to do while Ray plays with his DS. “When will they come paddling over here?” Ray demands impatiently, looking at his game. 

“What difference does it make to you?” Michael asks. “You’d be too shy to talk to them anyway.” 

Ray huffs. “Well, whatever.” 

Michael glances up from his work and sees a paddleboat coming their way from the boat house, finally. A few more boats fill with people and the pond suddenly has several boats paddling around it. Little orange lifejackets paint the pond like an orange grove. 

“Yes, finally.” 

One boat in particular catches Michael’s attention. He recognizes Gavin as the one piloting the boat, by himself, though. Gavin is a little red in the face by the time he makes it to the dock. “Hi,” he musters.

“Hi, moron. You know you’re supposed to be peddling that thing with someone else, right?” Michael teases, shoving the lanyard into his pocket.

“Yeah,” Gavin says, still somewhat breathy and with a blush on his cheeks. “I just…” He holds up an orange jacket. 

“Oh, y-you want me to…” Michael stammers. 

Ray finally looks up. “You must be the famous British heartthrob, Gavin.” 

Gavin scoffs a sort of chuckle. “Hi. What’s your name?”

“This is Ray,” Michael answers for him. “He’s my friend.”

“Cool. So you wanna come with me, Michael?” 

Michael can’t help but notice how Gavin says his name more like “Mi-cool” than “Michael,” but it makes him feel all bubbly inside for some dumb reason. “Sure, I’ll come with you. Peace, Ray.” Michael slides off of the dock and onto the boat, taking the embarrassing orange lifejacket. “Tell me if any pretty cheerleaders come by, okay?” 

“I got it, bro,” Ray says, giving a half-hearted thumbs up. “Have him back by ten, okay, Gavin?” Ray mocks in a dad-voice.

Gavin chuckles with a blush. “Ha, okay.” 

Michael gives Ray an “I’ll kill you” look, but Ray isn’t looking at them anymore, but rather his game. 

Gavin peddles the boat backwards with Michael’s help and they steer toward the middle of the pond and around to quiet areas. “Thanks for coming, Michael,” Gavin says softly.

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” Michael tells him, confused at Gavin’s attitude.

Gavin smiles widely. “Hey, uh, did you tell Ray I was hot or something?” he teases. 

“No!” Michael shouts, pedaling faster suddenly. 

“Just wonderin’. He was acting kinda weird, you know.”

“Well, Ray’s an asshole.” Michael can feel his face getting warm, but he’s not sure if it’s anger. “Anyway, where are you from?”

“Oxfordshire, England,” Gavin tells him. “You can tell I’m English, right?”

“Yeah, if your accent wasn’t enough, you’ve got that stupid European haircut,” Michael jokes.

“You?” Gavin asks, looking into the green water.

“Originally New Jersey, but my family moved the Austin when I was in junior high. I was so mad at the time. My mom thought sending me to camp that summer would get my mind off of it. The only good thing that came out of it was that I managed to convince Ray to come with me. I had met him in class that year, and we’ve been best friends since that summer. It’s like going through camp together like that, well you have to come out of it closer than when you went in, you know?” 

Gavin nods. 

“Where are your friends?” Michael asks after a quiet minute.

“Um, London, I guess,” Gavin says solemnly. “I have a friend called Dan. We’ve known each other since… Well we’ve known each other a while.” His face perks up a little as he talks about him. “He and I like to make videos together. We never do anything with them but we like to show the younger kids. They get a kick out of it.”

“That’s really cool. You could-uh-put them online, you know? People might watch them?”

Gavin shrugs. “I dunno.” He glances at Michael for a second. “Hey, what’s your favorite color?” he asks.

“Um, I don’t really have one. Maybe yellow? Why?”

“I don’t know,” Gavin confesses, dipping a hand into the water. “I just… I’m not very good at this.”

Michael smiles. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Purple,” Gavin says quickly. “I know some say it’s a fem color, but I don’t care.”

Michael snorts. “What about your favorite animal?”

“I used to have a cat,” Gavin says, distracted enough to quit pedaling the boat. “He was a dumb cat though. One time I was filling up a balloon with water to throw at my dad when he got home from work, as a kind of joke, you know? The stupid cat slashed it with his claws and got utterly soaked and he didn’t come back to my house for like four days. That cat was still top, though.”

Michael laughs, having quit pedaling, too. “My parents never really wanted us having pets, so my brother and I went and picked up a dog from a farm one day, ‘cause they were giving them away since they weren’t purebred. We took her home and tried to keep it a secret from out parents. We thought we’d get away with it, but our mom found dog poop in our living room and blaming it on my brother didn’t work. But she felt so bad for us when she said we’d have to give her away that she let us keep her.”

“I wonder if dogs have like a thing in their brain that tells them to stop getting bigger,” Gavin muses.

“What?” Michael barks. 

“Well, I mean you never see Chihuahuas as big as Saint Bernards.”

Michael chuckles. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s in the DNA.”

“I guess it’s the same reason that I’m taller than you,” Gavin says cheekily.

Michael grins. “You’re an ass.” 

They two of them wind up talking about stupid stuff like how Gavin knows that giraffes have the same number of vertebrae in their necks as humans but he doesn’t understand why people enjoy rollercoasters. And Michael talks about how in New Jersey people were rude and he liked it, but Texas is too polite and how he loves to go back every Christmas and visit his cousins even though they treat him like shit. And Gavin tells Michael he never had cousins. Michael doesn’t ask any questions about it though. Michael never does talk to any of the cheerleaders out on the pond, but he’s forgotten about it after a few hours. 

The horn sounds for dinner, so they get the last boat left out on the pond back to the boat house. 

Michael gives Gavin a once over as he takes off the lifejacket. He’s got a weird kind of charm to him, even though on paper he’d sound really hard to look at. Gavin’s lips kind of curl when he talks and his eyes crinkle a lot when he smiles. Gavin’s saying something about how the cheerleaders he’d seen are kind of disappointing. Michael agrees nonchalantly. 

“Well, thanks for spending the afternoon with a Sad Camper,” Gavin says, nodding to him. 

Michael didn’t realize that they knew the other campers called them that. “Huh?”

“Yeah, I heard a Fat Camper calling me that,” Gavin said. “Oh well.” He gives a school-photo smile. 

“You’re so weird,” Michael tells him with a laugh.

Gavin shrugs and is about to walk away. 

“Hey!” Michael calls.

“What?” 

“You might want to take off your life jacket.”

Gavin blushes as he unbuckles the straps. 

“Hey, I’ll see you later, right?” Michael asks, a “please” hiding behind his words.

Gavin hangs his jacket up on a hook in the wood paneled boat house. “If you want to see me, I’ll see you.” 

“Okay,” Michael says hopefully. “I’ll see you.”

Michael walks into the mess hall and finds Ray sitting by himself at a long table. He grabs a food tray and slides onto the bench across from him.

“Hey, thanks for ditching me,” Ray jokes. “How was your date?”

“Will you quit with that shit?” Michael begs. 

“Dude, you were out on the lake with that guy for like three hours!” 

“So? If you got to know him, you’d probably like to spend time with him too.”

Ray stirs his food around on his plate. “So… You wanna hear about my afternoon?” 

Michael stuffs a spoonful of instant mashed potatoes into his mouth. “Sure, I guess.”

“I met one of the cheerleaders, actually.”

“Really?” Michael asks, taking a genuine interest now. 

“Yeah. She’s named Courtney. She wasn’t a stereotypical cheerleader. She had a nose ring and she likes video games. She said that’s why she paddled to me, because she wanted to know what I was playing.”

“Dude, did you get those digits?” Michael interrogates, shoving more food into his mouth.

“Nah. I chickened out, of course,” Ray mutters softly. 

“Ah, well, dude. You’ll see her again. No doubt.” Michael begins humming Summer Lovin’ from Grease while he eats. 

Ray pokes around at his food until he decides to go back to the cabin and lie down.

“Suit yourself,” Michael yells through the food in his mouth.


	3. Squeamish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael and Gavin discuss the upcoming dance.

The next day, Michael decides to sit out on the dock while the cheerleaders swim after lunch. Little bodies in the orange lifejackets dot the pond. They don’t bother with swim tests and just stick everyone in them. So even if the girls were hot in bikinis, they look like dorks with the lifejackets floating above the water up to their heads, making it look like they have no necks. It’s still funny, though, so Michael likes to look at the neckless would-be babes.

His gaze is fixed on the little orange bodies bobbing by Jock Camp’s dock when he feels a tap on his leg. He looks down to see a wet Gavin, skin glistening from the dirty pond water. No neck, goofy grin. “Hi Michael.”

“Hi, Gav,” Michael replies. “Enjoying the mutant juice?” 

"You mean this pond water? T’is kinda nasty.”

“Imagine all the fish poo in it,” Michael jokes. 

Gavin laughs before getting a horrified look on his face, and he begins gagging. “Oh God—Bloody hell,” he squeaks out between coughs. He reaches up and grabs the dock and tries to pull himself out of the water. Michael enjoys watching the struggle, gasping for breath with his raucous cackles, before giving in and helping the featherweight Brit out of the water. 

Gavin sputters for a minute, catching his breath. “That’s damn disgustin’!” he chokes.

“Sorry,” Michael gasps. “Didn’t know you were that nauseous.”

Gavin nods, inhaling deeply. “Yeah, kinda squeamish.”

Michael shakes his head. “That’s adorable.” 

“You know me,” Gavin kids, removing his orange puffy jacket. 

Michael casts a glance his way. “Hey you remembered to take it off this time!”

“Yeah. Hey! You have freckles,” Gavin blurts out of nowhere. 

Michael scrunches his eyebrows together. “Yeah, I know.”

“Sorry, I just hadn’t noticed before. I think freckles are like Dalmatian spots for people. But I don’t think you’d be a Dalmatian if you were a dog,” Gavin rambles. “You’d be more of a… a… Jack Russell Terrier, I think.”

“What?” Michael can’t keep up with Gavin’s fast-paced brain, spouting out all his whimsical nonsense.

“It’s a kind of small dog,” Gavin explains. “They’re pretty feisty and bark a lot. My nan had one once. It died chasing a rabbit--got hit by a car. Tragic really. But you remind me of him, sort of.”

“Geez, thanks,” Michael huffs. “Glad I make you think of a dead dog.”

“It’s a good thing!” Gavin back-pedals. “They’re a lovely breed.”

“I know what a Jack Russell Terrier is,” Michael snaps, feigning frustration. 

“Ha, oh sorry. Michael, if I were a dog, what kind do you think I’d be?” 

“This is the stupidest conversation I have ever had… Uh, you’d be a Labradoodle.”

“Why’d you say that?” Gavin asks, coking his head as though he were a puppy.

Michael rolls his eyes. “Well, you’re kind of shaggy like one. And they’re supposedly friendly and energetic. But I’m not a dog expert, so get the hell off my back.”

Gavin giggles and then goes silent.

Michael doesn’t say anything either, instead choosing to stare out at the cheerleaders. He remembers Gavin saying they were disappointing, but Michael hadn’t noticed. He’d been so wrapped up in talking to Gavin he forgot to look. 

“Hey, Michael?” Gavin whispers, finally breaking the quietness. “You know anything about the Foxwood dance?”

“You don’t have to whisper, Gav. It’s not a secret,” Michael replies quickly, kicking his foot up in the water, splashing it out onto a couple of Fat Campers absentmindedly. 

“Whatever, just tell me about it.”

Michael sighs unhappily. “Well, usually the jocks come over to our camp the night before the dance and take all of the passable girls, leaving us guys with no one to take. So we go, stand pressed up against the wall of the gym, and are forced to stare at the jock guys grabbing the girls’ asses like pigs. We drink punch, the counselors get drunk, we go back to our cabins and get to hear the camp legends of Scotty McCarran or Warren Dentin banging three girls in one night out in the woods the next day. Let me tell you, it’s a killer time.”

“B-but it should be different this year, right?” Gavin asks. “I mean, the jock camp is just all girl campers.”

“I guess so,” Michael replies flatly. “Ray still says he’s not going.”

“Will you go?” 

Michael just shrugs. 

“Will you take a date?”

“I dunno.”

“When is it?”

“What is this? Twenty questions?” 

Gavin gives Michael a pouty expression. 

Michael relents. “Uh. It’s the 24th this year? A Wednesday, maybe. Two weeks from now. My birthday, actually”

“Oh, okay,” Gavin says, his voice soft, not excited. “Kinda sucks that your birthday’s going to be overshadowed by the dance.”

“Will, uh, you go?” Michael pokes his thigh uncomfortably.

“I guess, I mean I came all the way out here. Might as well get the full camp experience.” With that, Gavin straps his life jacket back on and slides back into the water. “Don’t say a word about this water Michael, or I swear--”

“Fish poo,” Michael whispers. 

Gavin shakes his head and gags as he swims his way back to the Sad Camp dock. “See you, Michael!” he yells between gasps.

Michael calls back to the dork in the shameful neon vest, “See you Gavvy!”


	4. The Purple Lanyard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gavin gets teased by some of the other campers.

A week more of camp passes with nothing strange or surprising happening. Ray stays in the cabin playing video games or walking around aimlessly with Michael or just sitting on the dock watching the other camp kids engage in water sport. Ray has had Courtney visit his dock a few times, but usually they just talk about video games or trivial “how are you” types of things, but it’s more socializing than Ray’s typically used to, so it’s refreshing to see. Caleb bums around with the Fat Campers, swimming with them a lot of the time and trying to convince them to share their secret potato chips. 

Michael, though, spends a lot of time with Gavin. He’s the first friend he’s ever made at camp, and something about that seems special. They build their friendship realizing they both like video games (a lot) and talking about what they’re going to do when they “grow up.” Michael wants to start a business and Gavin doesn’t know what he wants to do, but Michael suggests going into filmography. Gavin just shrugs off these ideas as overambitious, but in his mind he takes to heart Michael’s suggestions. Gavin asks a lot of dumb, “What if?” questions, like: “What if Lady Gaga was your mother,” or “what if instead of making saliva, your mouth made grape juice so every time you frenched someone, they got a refreshing bev at the same time?” Michael notices that Gavin shortens a lot of words. “Female” becomes “fem.” “Beverages” becomes “bevs.” “Vomit” becomes “vom.” “Spaghetti” becomes “spaghet.” Michael can’t help but find it endearing, much to his chagrin. They bond like this sitting on the dock or walking the path around the pond. 

It’s a Wednesday morning, a week since the “what dog am I” discussion, and a week until the dance/Michael’s birthday. Michael sleeps like normal in his bunk, Caleb snoring above him, Ray burritoed in his sleeping bag on his own bed. Suddenly, there’s a knocking on the cabin door, and Michael jars awake, seeing Gavin stumbling into his room. 

“G-Gavin? Why aren’t you at your camp?” Michael asks groggily, his voice hoarse. The freckled boy reaches for his glasses and puts them on, sitting up fully and observing the breathless Brit.

“I’m just—I…” Gavin is panting as though he jogged the whole way over. 

Michael gets out of bed, pulls a shirt on and takes Gavin to the dock so as not to wake Ray or Caleb.

Gavin sits, swilling his feet in the water. 

“What’s up?” Michael demands.

Gavin just shrugs, sniffing, but not crying. “Those kids at my camp, they keep, just, uh…” He’s having trouble getting out the words.

“Spit it out, Gav!” 

“They just treat me like such rubbish!” he half-shouts. “I’ve had enough.”

“Why do they?” Michael wonders, confused as to why someone would genuinely hurt Gavin’s feelings.

Gavin shrugs. “The pick on me for my accent, they pick on me for being so thin, they pick on me because I don’t shave yet. You know, this and that.” 

“Why’d you come running to my cabin this morning, though?” Michael asks, concerned.

“They were about to pull some prank on me in my sleep, but one kid chuckled so loud, I woke up. I saw them holding shaving cream, honey, and tea bags. I don’t know what they had planned for me, but I got out right quick.” Gavin hangs his head. “I hate it.”

“Man, that sucks. You came all the way to come to camp here and this is what happens? I ought to knock some courtesy and sense into those pricks!” Michael stands, clenching his fists.

Gavin grabs Michael’s pant leg. “Sit down, Michael,” he says affectionately, grinning at his would-be savior. 

Michael complies.

“You know, camp’s not that bad really. I’ve gotten to meet you, after all.” Gavin’s cheeks go rosy as he smiles. “Not to mention Ray!” 

“Okay, if you’re sure you don’t want me to, I’ll try my best not to slaughter those guys.”

Gavin kind of rolls his shoulders loosely. “You know, even if they treat me bad, I can’t be mean to them back, even if I really, really want to be. My inner annoying bastard wants to grief them so badly, but you know, Michael, they’ve lost a lot. And I couldn’t do that to them.” 

Michael wants to say, “Well, you’re an orphan too!” but he restrains himself. Instead he says, “Well, it’s no excuse to be a dick.” 

Gavin just laughs. “I know, but still.” Ah. “But still”--the ultimate argument ender. 

Ray comes around and the three spend the day faffing about the pond, skipping stones and answering would-you-rather questions, breaking only for meals, until night time when they go back to their cabins. 

Michael tells Ray about his talk with Gavin that morning on the dock and Ray sighs. “Ryan was right. That is sad shit.”

Michael runs a hand through his hair. He decides he’s going to cheer up Gavin himself. He leans over his bed and picks up some supplies from the floor. He’s not got a surplus of talent or materials, but he’s got something. 

Ray discovers Michael the next morning clutching a mostly-finished lanyard in his hand and drooling on his pillow. Ray chuckles, shaking his cherry-wood haired friend. “Get up, Michael!” 

Michael swings at Ray before he realizes what he’s doing. He rubs his eyes and sits up. “Sorry man, didn’t mean to punch you.”

“It’s cool,” Ray mumbles, rubbing his bicep. “Hey, what’s up with the lanyard?” 

Michael looks down at his fist. “Oh shit! I was going to finish it last night.” He starts weaving as fast as he can while still maintaining the integrity of the art of lanyard making.

“What’s you deal?” Ray asks accusingly.

Michael sighs, his fingers moving rapidly. “Well, Gavin’s been kind of down you know. Those douches at his camp… Anyway, I thought I’d make him a lanyard to cheer him up.”

“What kind of person would be cheered up by a shitty, hand-made lanyard?”

“The kind of person that Gavin is,” Michael spits back deftly. “Aha!” He holds up the finished product. “I’m going to go take it to him.”

“Okay, lover boy,” Ray teases as Michael runs out of the cabin.

Michael half-jogs around the pond and wanders around in Sad Camp until he finds the cabin called “Importance,” where he’s pretty sure Gavin resides. 

He knocks on the door and some blond, pig nose kid answers the door. 

“Can Gavin come out?” Michael asks as politely as possible.

The blond rolls his eyes. “Hey Gavin, your boyfriend is here.”

“Shut up, Paul,” a muffled British voice moans.

Michael peeks past the blond kid (apparently called Paul) to see Gavin sitting up, whose bed head is somehow worse than his normal hair. “Michael?” he croaks out. He shoots up then and strides out of the cabin, ignoring the fact that he’s wearing his pajamas still. 

Michael walks with Gavin to Sad Camp dock and sits down. “Things sure look different from this side of the lake, huh?” he remarks.

Gavin sits down cross-legged next to him. “I guess,” he mumbles, sleep still in his eyes.

Michael elbows him. “Hey, I made you something.” He holds up the purple trinket. 

Gavin takes it, a small, sleepy smile easing across his tanned face. “What is it?” he asks after a moment.

Michael shrugs, trying to be as nonchalant about it as possible. “It’s a lanyard. I thought a hand-made camp souvenir would, I don’t know, cheer you up a bit?” 

Gavin slips it around his neck. “I like it a lot, Michael,” he tells him. “But you didn’t have to, you know. I don’t need cheering up. I’m fine.”

“Well, in any case, I want you to have it,” Michael says. 

“You made it purple, didn’t ya?”

“Yeah. You said it was your favorite color, so you know.” Michael stands up, trying to escape the atmosphere he accidently created. “Alright, I’m going for breakfast.”

“Yeah, okay,” Gavin mumbles, rubbing his eyes, standing too.

Just as Michael steps off the dock, he feels arms around him.

“Thanks,” Gavin murmurs before releasing Michael and walking back toward Importance.


	5. Truth or Dare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gavin comes over to Michael's cabin for a sleep over.

Michael and Ray are reclining in their respective beds, Michael, without focus, writing a letter home to his mother describing how he misses home but has actually made a new friend. He writes methodically and efficiently while listening to Ray talk about Courtney and how chill she is and where she’s from and all that sort of thing.

“You going to take her to the dance?” Michael asks, scribbling down his thoughts quickly on a piece of paper. 

Ray shrugs. “You know how I hate stuff like that. I think Courtney does too.”

“Still, she’s a girl,” Michael points out. “Even if she doesn’t like that kind of stuff, she’ll probably be flattered if you at least make an offer.”

“Yeah, maybe, I’ll just have to hope she says no.” 

Michael laughs. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” As his chuckles calm down, he signs the letter, with love. His tongue rolls out like a red carpet and licks the envelope. Slapping a stamp on it, he trudges to the mail box outside and drops it in. 

In the distance, he spots a shadowy figure coming toward him, waving broadly. It appears to be carrying a sleeping bag. 

“Hi, Michael!” a high-pitched voice calls.

Michael’s face lights up. “Where’ve you been today?” he asks back, Gavin’s figure coming into view. It is Friday night, but Michael hasn’t seen his British buddy all day.

“I’ve been busy at my camp. My cabin got real messy, so my counselor asked me to clean it up before I came over here.”

“It took you all day?” Michael wonders skeptically, placing a hand on the boy’s back and guiding him to Barracuda.

Gavin gives a sheepish grin. “I’m very cluttered.”

“Why do you have your sleeping bag?”

“My counselor’s actually really top. He’s called Geoff. He told me if I cleaned up the cabin, he’d let me come sleep over here tonight. Assuming it’s alright with your counselor.”

Michael opens the door to the cabin. “Hey, Jack! I got a visitor!” he shouts, hoping Jack will hear him from the adjacent room.

“Is it a girl?” a deep voice shouts back.

“No.”

“Of course not. In that case, it’s fine.”

Gavin makes a squealing noise and throws out his green sleeping bag, spreading it on the floor.

“Hi, Gav,” Ray greets finally, raising a lazy hand.

“Hi Ray!” Gavin squeaks. 

“Hi, Gav!” Caleb calls from the top bunk.

“Hello, Caleb.”

“Hi, Gavin!” Jack shouts facetiously from the other room.

“Hi, counselor man!” Gavin replies, not remembering the name Michael just said.

“Great, now we’re all nice and greeted,” Michael scoffs, an involuntary smile struggling at the corner of Michael’s lips. “What now?”

“Truth or Dare?” Caleb suggests from his perch.

Gavin makes a noise of delight.

“I’m not an eighth grade girl,” Michael protests. 

Ray doesn’t vote on the matter, but tries to make another suggestion “Well, how about… Shit, Truth or Dare’s the only thing I can think of now.”

“There’s nothing we can even do in here!” Michael groans, his voice straining with frustration. “The only thing we can do for dares is kiss each other, and no, that isn’t happening.”

“Well, who says we have to stay in here,” Caleb whispers deviously, peering over from atop the bed and pulling his baseball cap down over his eyes.

“I’m scared of outside!” Ray jokes.

“Come on, Michael!” Gavin pleads.

“Fine.”

“Yay!”

“But no kissing!”

“Like we would even want to kiss you,” Ray sasses, getting off his bed, rather begrudgingly.

Gavin bounds out the door, and the other three follow as quietly as possible. 

“Lights out is soon,” Gavin notes, checking his watch.

“Doesn’t matter,” Michael replies, walking toward the dock.

They get there and all sit down around the edge. “Okay, who’s first?” Caleb asks.

The game proceeds as usual. 

(Gavin asks) Michael picks Truth: If you could bang one celebrity for the rest of eternity, who would you pick? “Jennifer Lawrence, I guess.” 

(Michael asks). Gavin picks Dare: Drink some of the pond water. Gavin gags. 

(Caleb asks). Ray picks Dare: Jump into the pond with your clothes on. “Parkour.” 

(Ray asks, from the water). Caleb picks Dare: Bite Gavin’s nose. Gavin screams.

(Gavin asks). Michael picks Dare: Jump into the pond… naked. “F-ing, no way.” 

“You have to do it!” 

“Come on, Michael.”

Michael simply groans in reply, taking off his shirt. 

Gavin giggles mercilessly. 

“Don’t look,” Michael warns. “I will f-ing clock you.”

The other boys cover their eyes until they hear a splash.

Ray looks up from the murky water to see a pile of clothes on the dock. “You really did it,” he marvels.

“Well, Michael don’t back down from a challenge,” the freckled boy remarks of himself, treading water next to Ray. “Good thing this water is opaque as shit.”

“Well done!” Gavin cheers, then yawns. 

Ray grabs the edge of the dock and pulls himself out, with Caleb’s help. “You getting sleepy?” he asks, ringing out his soaking skirt.

Gavin shrugs. “Kind of.”

Michaell rolls his eyes. “We just got out here!” He splashes Gavin from the water.

“Ooh! Michael!” Gavin shrieks as the water hits him. 

“Come on, let’s go,” Ray says, offering a hand to Michael in the water.

“You guys aren’t getting a show unless you pay!” Michael barks back jokingly.

Ray pretends to reach for his wallet. 

“You shit,” Michael curses, pulling himself out of the water. The other boys comply to his wishes and cover their eyes, but Gavin does so just a moment late, not seeing any details other than the creamy color of Michael’s skin before he closes his eyes. 

Michael pulls on his clothes as fast as he can, then the four guys head back to Barracuda.

After changing into pajamas the boys climb into their beds, (Gavin more or less shimmying into his), and, after mumbling “goodnight” to each other, attempt to fall asleep.

Michael can’t though. For one, he smells like pond water still, and for two, he can hear the cacophony of Gavin’s bony body tossing around on the floor. He looks over to Ray, who appears to be asleep and he can hear heavy breathing from above, assuming Caleb is also.

“Gavin,” he whispers.

“Yeah?” a voice whispers back in the dark.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m cold. And the floor’s hard. But s’okay.”

“Well, uh…” Michael contemplates the consequences of asking Gavin if he wants to squeeze into his bed, but his thoughts are cut off by Ray mumbling, “Just snuggle already.”

“Okay,” Michael says. 

Gavin gets up and hops in his sleeping bag like at a potato sack race and, after banging his head on Caleb’s bunk, lays against Michael, back to back. 

“Are you comfy?” the Brit asks.

Michael’s honest answer would be no, because he has no room, but he decides to lie for the sake of simplicity. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Hey, thanks Michael.” 

“No problem,” Michael mutters.


	6. Stories and Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's about how Gavin and Michael spend a Saturday together

Outside of the Barracuda cabin, the horn sounds, signaling breakfast time. Michael’s eyes flutter open to see that he is millimeters away from sharing an Eskimo kiss with Gavin, who is still somehow sleeping, but he elects not to move just yet. 

Ray rubs his eyes in his bed, coming to consciousness. He doesn’t say anything, but snickers quietly.

Gavin twitches and grumbles when Caleb’s feet hit the floor. Then, his eyes flash open, their greenish bluish color sparkling in front of Michael’s own brown eyes. “Michael, you have the most awful morning breath,” Gavin mumbles, a smirk gracing his sleepy face.

“Shut up,” Michael spits back, shoving Gavin.

Gavin makes noises of protest, but Michael persists until Gavin is sufficiently knocked onto the floor, trapped by his own sleeping bag. “Ow, Michael!” Gavin pouts. 

“That’s what you get,” Michael says defiantly, sitting up and climbing out of bed. 

Ray and Michael take fast showers, to remove the stench of the pond water, and then the four boys go outside. 

Ray and Caleb say goodbye to Gavin quickly, shuffling off to breakfast. Michael decides to walk Gavin back to his camp, though, and even offers to carry his sleeping bag.

“Michael, I can carry it!” Gavin informs him. 

“I know, I just, I don’t know…” Michael curses his ginger nature and his tendency to become red-faced quickly.

Gavin sighs, a sort of regret and apprehension in his voice as he speaks. “Michael, I’m just… You don’t have to be so nice to me. I don’t need your… You don’t need to help out the poor orphaned kid, okay?” 

“What!?” Michael barks in confusion. “It’s not like that at all, Gav.”

“Really?” he prompts hopefully, clutching his sleeping bag to his chest.

“Most the time, I don’t even think about… it. You’re just my friend, okay? And sometimes I want to push you around and shove you off of beds and call you a moron and other times I want to carry your sleeping bag or make you a lanyard or give you a hug, okay?”

“You promise I’m not your charity case?”

“Shut up, Gavin,” Michael hisses. “Don’t even say something like that. I like you, alright? Whatever has happened to you.”

“Oh. Okay,” Gavin says quietly, looking down at the ground and his shuffling feet, squeezing his sleeping bag close to himself. “I like you, too, Michael.”

“F-ing good,” Michael replies, giving Gavin’s arm a playful punch. 

Gavin looks up at Michael. “I was just afraid that after camp is over…”

Michael feels a sharp pain in his abdomen. He hadn’t thought about that. For once, he’s like one of those other kids who honestly don’t want camp to be over. Gavin will be on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in less than two weeks. “Let’s not think about that right now,” Michael manages to choke out. 

They finally make it to Gavin’s camp and they exchange “see you later”s. As Michael walks back to his mess hall, all he can think about is that in eleven days, he’ll have to say goodbye to this kid. It occurs to him that twenty-five days is not nearly long enough for camp. When he finally slides down on the bench next to Ray, he can’t even eat from his stomach churning. But he shakes it off. Eleven days. He’ll make that to be plenty of time. 

He scarfs his meal of toast and seemingly plastic eggs and half jogs around the pond without saying much of anything to Ray about it. 

He wanders around Sad Camp for a few minutes before seeing Gavin through his cabin window, alone, fiddling with his purple lanyard. He knocks on the window, startling Gavin.

“Oh! Michael! Come in!” the British teen squeaks through the screen door.

Michael walks in. “What are you doing?” he asks, pointing at Gavin’s busy fingers.

“I was just wondering how you made this,” he replies hastily.

“I could show you?” Michael offers, sitting down on the floor in front of Gavin. 

Gavin shakes his head, sliding off the bed to join Michael. “It’s alright.” 

“What do you want to do today, then?” Michael demands.

“Uh. I don’t know, hadn’t really thought about it, you know. Not much to do around the gaff, huh?”

“Gaff?” Michael questions. “I swear you make up more words than anyone.”

“Gaff’s a real word, Michael. It means place.” Gavin says defensively.

“Whatever. What do you want to do?”

“How about you tell me a story?” Gavin suggests, lying back onto the hardwood floor.

“What kind?” 

“I don’t know. Tell me about when you were a little Michael, when you were a baby-thing.” 

“Okay. Um. When I was in elementary school, our mascot was “the beast.” I was kind of a little shit when I was little, so I told this one girl in my class that the reason that was our mascot was because “the beast” killed the old mascot, and the tradition was that whatever killed the last mascot got to be the new one.”

“That’s not so bad,” Gavin says, shrugging. “I’ve heard of worse things.”

“Well, that’s not all. I asked her where she thought they kept the beast. I told her that of course they have to keep it on school grounds because it is the school’s mascot after all. I told her that the beast lives in the boiler room and the school had to hire three new janitors in one year because it kept eating them.”

Gavin laughs. “She believed you?” 

“Yeah, she did. And so she told the teacher she couldn’t go into the basement once during a tornado drill, but the teacher practically threw her in there, kicking and screaming and crying and that’s when she figured out I had been lying the whole time. The worst part of the story is that she beat me up on the playground later that day. Thank Christ I moved schools, now that I think about it.”

“That’s incredible.”

Michael lies down now, his curls splaying out on the cabin floor. “How about you tell me a story, now? Tell me how you got here.” 

“Well, I suppose my mom and dad really loved each other and…”

“No, you idiot. I mean how you got to this camp.”

Gavin giggles. “Oh, I see. Well, this camp’s open to anyone, innit? I found out about it in an online ad. Camp Foxwood Lake, it said. I clicked on accident when I was watching a video online, but when I did, a schedule came up on the website, saying that they offered a four week camp at a reduced price for special cases. So I clicked again and saw that there was a week just for orphans, and I asked one of the ladies that works at my orphanage if I could maybe go. She said it would be too expensive, though. So I started to do dollar car washes with Dan on Saturdays. Of course, he got a cut of the profits, to be fair. Anyway, since I was showing so much interest, some of the social workers pulled some money together to help me out. Then they got in contact with my camp counselor. Geoff agreed would pick me up from the airport and let me stay with him and his wife for a day until we all left for camp. So I registered for camp and bought my airline ticket. Now here I am.”

“That’s kind of un-teenager-like to go away to camp for four weeks without knowing anybody who’d be there,” Michael remarks, tapping his fingers on his chest. 

Gavin cocks his head thoughtfully. “I guess so, but you know, I only have a few years left of being a kid before I get shoved out into the real world by myself. I thought camp would be a right good way to enjoy it.”

“Who says you have to grow up?” Michael says. “That’s bullshit. You can still be a kid.”

Gavin bites the inside of his cheek. “I haven’t felt like a normal kid in a long time.”

Michael hears the sadness in his voice and really hopes he didn’t accidently strike a nerve. 

Gavin sighs. “No one wants to adopt a teenage kid, do they?”

Michael isn’t sure how to respond, so opts for staying quiet. 

“Tell me another story, Michael,” he requests, his voice making a return to normalcy.

“Okay,” Michael agrees. “This one’s from when I was a teenager. 

“My parents would send me to this shitty camp, every summer and every year, I wanted to go home as soon as I got there and I rarely made any friends. But one summer, that changed. While I was hoping and praying for some hot cheerleaders to show up, something better came--a bus of Sad Campers. And on that bus was this one really annoying British prick named Gavin. And for once, I didn’t want to go home, because for once I actually made a friend.”

“Oh, gosh, Michael. That’s so cheesy,” Gavin teases, practically guffawing. 

Michael grimaces. “Well, fine. Try and catch me saying anything nice to you again.” 

“I’m just teasing you, Michael. I like that story.” Gavin sits up and squeezes Michael’s hand for a second. “Thanks.”

“Whatever,” he mutters under his breath, his heart racing. Is this what having a camp friend is like? “You owe me a story now.”

“Okay, well, in the town where I grew up, there was this kid who died in the woods. The story is that he haunts people who go back there. All my little neighbor buddies wanted to drag me back there and see if we’d be haunted. But I wasn’t going to take it lying down. So I brought a recording of ghost noises with me in my pocket, and I played it occasionally while we were back there. I’d walk really far behind them and snap branches on purpose, too. Then, I played a loud screamin’ noise and all my buddies went running out of the woods and I never did tell them it was me doin’ all that.” 

Michael’s jarring laughter lightens the mood and makes everything better and after a few seconds, Gavin can’t help but snort with laughter too.

“God, your laugh is ugly,” Michael jokes, poking Gavin’s chest.

“Well, yours is too loud!” Gavin accuses.

“You’re an idiot.”

“What does that have to do with laughing?”

“Nothing, but I still thought I’d point it out.”

Gavin lunges at Michael, a goofy grin on his face. Michael quickly puts Gavin in a headlock and the skinnier boy makes unholy noises until a tattooed man with scruffy facial hair and earrings saunters in.

“What the f—flip am I looking at?” he asks.

“Flip, Geoff? Really?” Gavin mocks, now released by Michael.

“I’m not supposed to cuss around the campers,” Geoff says with a sigh.

Gavin snorts. “It’s not like I didn’t hear it when I was at your house.”

“I guess you’re right, you piece of shit,” Geoff says, grabbing Gavin off the floor and giving him a noogie.

Gavin makes more squeaky noises. “Oi, Geoff!” 

Geoff lets him go, giving him a pat on the back. “Who’s this guy?” he asks, pointing to Michael who has been standing in quiet observation.

“He’s Michael,” Gavin answers warmly. “The guy who I stayed with last night.”

“Hi, Geoff,” Michael chokes out nervously.

“Alright, I’m taking a nap, so keep it down in here with…whatever you’re doing,” Geoff says, changing the subject. “Nice meeting you, Michael.”

“You too,” the freckled kid replies. 

Gavin leads Michael outside. “Why the heck were you so shy to him, Michael?”

“He was intimidating!” Michael spits back.

“Geoff? Nah, not him,” Gavin assures him, waving a dismissive hand. “He likes you anyway.”

“What? How does he even know who I am?”

“I’ve mentioned you to him,” Gavin tells him nonchalantly. 

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. I think he was worried I wouldn’t find any friends here, but look!” Gavin gestures to Michael. 

Michael begins worrying again about camp ending, thinking how four weeks mean so little in the grand scheme of life and how when he’s old, he might not even remember the British kid he met at Foxwood or the times they talked about stupid stuff on the docks. “Gavin,” Michael whispers. “Can I give you my address?” 

“Um, sure?”

“Will you write me, if I do?”

“I’ll try.”

“You should promise it,” Michael demands.

“Okay, I will!” Gavin confirms. “Geez.”

Michael kicks up a bit of dirt. “Let’s go to the dock.”

“Alright, buddy.”

The two boys sit down and look out on the sparkling green waters of the pond as cheerleaders and Fat Campers splash around in it mid-morning Saturday. They seem so unaware of how everything has to end so soon. Endings make Gavin nervous.

“Michael, do you know I’d rather stay here at camp forever than go back to England?”

“I know,” Michael replies with a sigh. “Maybe if there were more shit to do around here, we could think about something else!” 

“I’m so boooorrred, Michael!” Gavin pouts. 

“Would you Rather?”

“No.”

“Truth or Dare?”

“No.”

“Well, come up with your own f-ing idea then!” Michael spits back.

“How about shoot, shag, marry?”

“What the hell is that?” 

“It’s a game where I give you three names and you have to pick one person to shoot, one to shag, and one to marry! It’s brilliant!”

Michael and Gavin play the game for much of that day while sitting on the dock or walking around the pond and climbing trees. They exhaust the list of celebrity women whom they both know and begrudgingly move on to celebrity men, adding a fun new level of awkwardness to the game. Then they run out of celebrities altogether, which leads Gavin to pose this combination: “Jack, Ray, Geoff.”

“Aww, gross,” Michael hisses, perched in a tree branch above Gavin.

Gavin snickers. “You don’t actually have to do it, you know.”

“F- me. Um. Kill Jack? Do Geoff? Marry Ray? Ugh.” Michael shudders. “I don’t know man.”

Gavin laughs. “You can ask me now.”

Michael looks down and twiddles his thumbs. “Fine, uh, Caleb, your blond cabin-mate, and uh… me?” 

“Well, shoot Paul, of course. Then, well, shag Caleb and marry you.” Gavin gets a perplexed look on his face, as though he’s not sure where the answer came from, but eventually he nods, confirming his choices. “I mean, it’s obvious.” 

“Huh. I guess so.” Michael casts a glance up to the sky, littered with stars and painted with a bright white moon. “It’s getting late, okay? We should head back.”

“Yeah,” Gavin mumbles. “I’ll see ya.”

Michael jumps down from his upper branch fairly effortlessly, but then looking back at Gavin and realizes that, though he was on a lower branch, he is struggling beautifully to extricate himself from the branches.

Michael laughs, “Here, just let me…” 

Gavin swings his legs around and nearly kicks Michael’s face.

“Watch it!” Michael yells. 

Gavin releases the branch (and a yelp), then topples onto his auburn-haired, swearing friend. 

“You moron!” Michael scolds, shoving him off. “You could’ve gotten hurt—or worse, you could’ve hurt me!”

Gavin squeaks and squawks and Michael punches his arms. “Stop it, Michael, stop it!” 

Michael does after a moment and opts for a hug instead. Then he gives Gavin a wave and a nod and he walks back to his cabin.


	7. The Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael and Gavin brave the Dance at Camp Foxwood.

Wednesday night comes and it’s time for the dance at Camp Jock. Kids from all four camps don their best t-shirts and shorts (and a few extra dorky kids actually adorn themselves with collared shirts, ties and dresses) then parade over to the big gymnasium. 

Michael finds a clean shirt amid his musty clothes and puts on a pair of khaki shorts that don’t smell too offensive. Ray groans as he rolls off his bed, knowing that Courtney is expecting him at the dock to take her to the dance. 

“Look on the bright side, Brownman,” Michael remarks. “Maybe she’ll ask to leave early and you can take her to make-out point?”

Ray chuckles. “Yeah, right.”

“At least you have a date,” Michael grumbles, pulling on his socks.

“Well, so do you. He’s just not a girl,” Ray points out.

Michael bunches his eyebrows together. “Shut up, Ray.”

A knock sounds against the door of the cabin and a goofy, grinning Gavin sashays in, wearing a striped collared polo and some plaid cargo shorts. He looks proud of himself for attempting something nicer that a t-shirt, but the atrocity of the clashing patterns just makes Michael laugh. 

“What?” Gavin questions, sounding hurt. He looks down at his outfit. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Michael wheezes. “Let’s just go.”

“Oh, Happy Birthday, by the way,” Gavin says. “Would’ve got you a gift, but considering I never met you before camp, I didn’t have the chance to get you one.”

Michael simply smiles. 

The two boys walk over to the gym fairly quietly. Michael opens the big door to the building, allowing Gavin to enter in front of him. The lights are dimmed and the room has a pale red glow from some twinkling lights lazily strung around the room. Balloons have floated to the ceiling and a loud bass sound emanates from a DJ booth opposite the entrance. Michael squints past his glasses to see that Ryan appears to be the DJ for the evening, though he doesn’t seem too happy about it. 

Geoff approaches them, holding a red plastic cup in hand. Gavin gives it a suspicious look. 

“It’s just Sprite, I promise,” Geoff tells them knowingly, shouting over the music.

“What are we supposed to do here?” Gavin shouts back.

“I dunno. Dance and try not to get anyone pregnant.” 

Gavin laughs. “I don’t think the likes of us have to worry about that too much.”

Geoff shrugs. “Uglier dudes have made it.”

Michael rolls his eyes playfully. 

“Did you do the decoration?” Gavin asks, looking around the poorly-ornamented room.

Geoff also gazes around, a proud crooked smile tugging at his lips. “Pretty great, huh?”

Gavin gives a nod. 

“Well, I have to go make sure these asses aren’t making it to second base or getting drunk for the first time. See you two around.” Geoff waves dismissively and walks away.

“What should we do, Michael?” Gavin croons over the music.

Michael shrugs. “Let’s find some single girls?”

They scout the room and find two passable girls leaned against the wall, looking rather disinterested in the dance. They are probably Sad Campers.

“I think I know them,” Gavin whispers.

They walk up to them and grin as widely as they can. “Um, want to dance with us?” Michael asks meekly and rather unconvincingly.

The girls look them over, spending extra time on Gavin. “Did you get dressed in the dark?” the shorter of the two asks in a low, dry tone. 

Gavin goes red in the face a sputters for a minute before delivering a defensive, “No!”

She smirks at him. “Okay,” she says, taking his wrist and dragging him to the dance floor.

Gavin turns around to give Michael a wary thumbs up. 

The other girl looks unimpressed with Michael, but regardless, she sighs and hooks her finger in his belt loop, pulling him along to dance.

Gavin seems to glide effortlessly along with the girl, though clumsily stepping on her feet on more than one occasion. However, Michael isn’t having as easy a time with his partner. One of them is off beat and his movements are stilted and jagged. He looks like he’s attempting a very bad version of the robot on her. Gavin sees the struggle over the head of his short dance partner and elects to remedy the situation. 

He excuses himself from his partner and asks the taller of the two girls if he can cut in with Michael. She hesitantly agrees with a confused, “sure,” so Gavin takes Michael’s hand.

“What are you doing?” Michael hisses.

“I can’t stand to watch you anymore. It’s painful,” the Brit whispers into Michael’s ear.

The two girls wander off into the sea of puberty, leaving Gavin to move around a mostly stationary Michael. 

“I’m not dancing with you,” Michael fusses.

“That’s fine,” Gavin hums. “Just stand there and I’ll make you look good.” He bobs around his freckled friend, lazily dancing in a circle. He squishes Michael’s feet under his own several times, but other than those few errors, it doesn’t look too bad. However, Michael still feels the heat of embarrassment from dancing with a drunk-on-life Gavin in front of kids his own age, so a wave of relief washes over him when a slow song begins.

Gavin pauses his frenzy of motion. “Let’s go outside,” he suggests.

Michael follows him out the door and into the crisp air of the summer night. 

“That was fun,” Gavin remarks after a moment, lowering himself to sit against the building. 

Michael slides next to him, a blush on his cheeks. “Yeah, it was I guess.”

“Too bad about your awful dancing,” Gavin teases. 

“Shut up, at least I didn’t mangle your toesies!” Michael spits back, a smile burgeoning under his angry expression.

Gavin snickers. “I can teach you to dance better, you know.”

Michael huffs. “Yeah?” 

Gavin nods to the beat of the muffled song coming from inside the gym. “Yeah, you just have to loosen up. You’re too stiff.” He stands up and offers a hand to Michael. “Just don’t be afraid to step on some toesies, okay?”

Michael grabs the hand and stands. 

“Okay, so move your knees, just bend them to the beat, and maybe lean back a little.”

“This looks… dirty,” Michael comments, watching Gavin bobble.

Gavin giggles. “Don’t be a prude, Michael. Now just hold your arms at a comfortable position and…”

Michael follows what Gavin does.

“Keep your shoulders loose and nod your head.”

Michael does so. 

“Now if you want to do this with a girl…” Gavin takes a step closer. “Just move where she does.” 

Gavin brushes up against Michael as they sway to the music. 

“Alright, that’s good,” Gavin concludes, stepping back, looking as though his face were warm. “Do you want to go give it a try?” He nods toward the door back into the gym.

Michael shakes his head. “Not really.”

“Me neither,” Gavin agrees. “What shall we do, then?”

For some stupid reason, the idea to find make-out point strikes Michael. “Well, there’s a legendary location at Foxwood,” Michael says.

“Yeah?”

“Well… No, it’s stupid of me.” Michael kicks himself; he shouldn’t have said anything about it to him. Now he’ll get the wrong idea, if there is a wrong idea to have.

“Just spit it out Michael. I’ll probably never get to come back to this camp again. We should go.”

Michael groans. “Okay, fine.” He will not tell him what the place is meant for. He won’t say a word about kissing or making out. Maybe they won’t even find it.

The wander into the woods behind the gym, where Michael has heard it is supposedly. They navigate through the trees and over rocks, but the darkness of the night keeps Michael from seeing too well. 

“I wish we had a torch,” Gavin complains.

Michael scoffs. “A torch? What is this, the middle ages?”

“What?” 

“Why would you want to have a torch? Why not a flashlight or something?”

“A what?!” Gavin spits back, horrified, having misheard Michael.

“A FLASHlight.”

“Oh. That’s what an American calls a torch, huh?” Gavin says, finally understanding.

“A flashlight and a torch are two different things,” Michael argues, bounding over an anthill and some tree roots.

“Not to me they aren’t,” Gavin replies, tripping over the roots.

Michael hears Gavin slipping and turns in time to grab his arm.

“Thanks.”

“No problem, idiot.”

When Michael turns back around, he is confronted with a cliff facing out over a canyon full of trees and a distant lake behind them. He gazes at the trees surrounding the cliff and notices all the initials carved into their bark. On the rocky slate overlooking the forest, Michael sees the scrawl of teenage lovers, indicating their passion will be eternal (and also a few scattered condom wrappers).

“We’re here,” he informs Gavin, who is still brushing debris off of his plaid shorts.

“Cool. Where are we?”

“Uh…” Michael searches for a way to explain where he has taken his friend, but Gavin cuts off his thoughts.

“I know what this is,” he murmurs, noticing the scenery. “Really, Michael?” he asks incredulously. 

“Look, it’s just, every year we hear about the guys who come here and get lucky, so this place is kind of Loch Ness monster-y.”

“So you took me here?”

“I didn’t even think we’d find it!” Michael shouts back defensively.

“So you didn’t want to… to take me here for any reason? You didn’t even want us to find this place?”

Michael searched his mind for the right answer. “I wasn’t expecting much, okay? That’s all I can say.”

“Why not?” Gavin asked, his expression somewhere between hurt and confused.

Michael sat down on the ground a few feet away from the edge with a sigh. “I don’t know what you’re thinking most of the time, Gav. I mean sometimes I think we could, you know… But then other times it just feels like I’m building myself up for nothing.”

Gavin sits down next to him. “So, that’s how you feel about me?”

Michael shrugs. 

“Oh,” Gavin replies quietly. 

A moment of uncertainty. Seven days left at camp. 

“Michael?” 

The freckled boy turns to look at Gavin who he sees smiling. Gavin scoots closer to Michael, not breaking eye contact.  
“Gavin, are you…?”

Gavin nods and Michael leans too and the gap between them closes and suddenly it’s happening. Michael believes in the magic of make-out point, even if it’s only a simple kiss that they are sharing.

They pull away after a brief moment. Gavin reaches a hand up to touch his lips, as though they are transformed. “Michael, that was my first kiss,” Gavin confesses. 

“Yeah?” Michael extends his legs out in front of him, leaning back on his straight arms, a small smirk dancing on the corners of his mouth. He feels like he should be smoking a cigar or something. What a birthday present.

“What now?” Gavin asks, sitting with his calves tucked under his thighs, facing the relaxing Michael. 

“I don’t know,” Michael admits. 

Gavin stands up. “Let’s go back to camp.”

“Okay.”


	8. The Countdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how Gavin and Michael spend the last week of camp.

Seven Days, Six Nights

When Michael wakes up on the Thursday morning after the dance, he can’t remember if he dreamed it or if it were true. Did he and Gavin… kiss? Surely not. He blinks back the tiredness from his eyes and glances over to Ray. The dark haired teen is sleeping heavily, looking worn out from whatever he and Courtney did last night. Michael allows himself a grin, wanting to congratulate Ray on his first night of social activity since camp started, but he decides not to. 

Michael shifts out of his bed and pulls on his clothes, walking to the door. When he gets there, he sees a paper slid under the crack of the door. It says his name on the front, so he takes it and unfolds it. 

Hi, Michael.

That’s all the note says. Michael chuckles, knowing who wrote it. He tucks it into his pocket and walks outside. He finds Gavin leaned against a tree, fumbling with the purple lanyard again. 

“You wanna go for a hike, Gav?” Michael asks.

Gavin shoves the lanyard into his pocket, glancing up at Michael from behind his floppy bangs. “Are we going back to…?” 

Michael realizes it hadn’t been a dream at all, but for shock doesn’t reply.

“I don’t know if I could remember the way there anyway,” Gavin recovers. “Let’s just walk.”

After grabbing breakfast and snagging some Poptarts for later, the two boys shuffle through the woods. Gavin chatters about how if he were a girl he’d always be holding his boobs and how if he had a prosthetic leg he doesn’t know if he’d compete in the Olympics for his conscience’s sake. Michael points out that even with a prosthetic leg, Gavin wouldn’t be athletic enough for the Olympics. 

“Hey, Gavin,” Michael mutters after a while of aimless wandering. 

“Yeah?”

Michael looks at Gavin’s lopsided smile and hopes that he doesn’t steal it. “What… happened to your parents?” 

Gavin’s grin does fade, though. “Why?”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Michael back-pedals. “I just was wondering, you know.”

“No, I’ll tell you.” Gavin sighs. “Just your regular Lilo and Stitch stuff. They left one day, didn’t come back. I was thirteen.” 

“Oh. I just…” Michael shakes his head. “Guess I was curious.”

“It’s okay. If it were reversed, I’d want to know too.” He shrugs.

Six Days, Five Nights

Michael, Ray, Gavin, and Caleb elect to stay in the cabin all day, taking shifts with Ray’s DS because he’s a generous guy and talking about if they had to revise American currency, who would they put on each bill. This discussion is brought up by Gavin and persists for several hours. Gavin’s suggestions include Lady Gaga and Bill Gates because his knowledge of American history is lacking while the other three boys struggle with the idea of removing Abraham Lincoln from the five dollar bill. 

Five Days, Four Nights

Gavin drags Michael to craft time at Sad Camp where they paint their feelings.

“Come on, Michael! I’ve not gone to arts and crafts once! It’s part of the summer camp experience,” Gavin begs. 

One look into Gavin’s stupid oceanic eyes and Michael caves. 

On a picnic table filled with colors like blue and black and grey, Gavin and Michael add their creations, mixing up the monochromatic display by including reds and yellows and greens. Michael normally hates art; Gavin’s bad too, but it’s kind of relaxing anyway. 

Four Days, Three Nights

It’s field day at Generic Camp. All campers are required to attend even if they don’t participate. Gavin shows up to watch. 

Michael and Ray watch from the sidelines as the other children fall onto their faces in the potato sack race and others pop balloons under their bony butts and roll over each other’s fingers on those elementary school sit-down scooters. 

Gavin begins elbowing Michael. “You should do an event,” he suggests. 

“No way!” Michael hisses, his voice cracking. 

“Please! You could win a ribbon!” Gavin points to the ribbon table, littered with ribbons for first, second, and third place. 

Michael rolls his eyes.

“You could do the rock wall challenge! You climb trees much better than I do! I bet you could beat anyone.” 

Michael huffs. “Okay.”

“Really!?” Gavin cheers. 

“Really?” Ray asks, looking up from his two screens. 

“Well, Caleb’s gotten into the spirit of it,” Michael replies, gesturing to Caleb who’s participating in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. 

Ray shrugs. “Alright man.”

Michael stands up and walks toward Ryan. “I’m doing the rock climb,” he informs him.

Ryan makes some scribbles on a clipboard. “Okay. Just don’t die.” He gives Michael a pat on the back. Walking toward the rock wall, Michael cringes.

Jack is standing next to the rented rock wall and points Michael toward the rented rock wall attendant and gets a harness. After a few moments, the other volunteers gather around. 

Michael hears a distinctive bellow from the audience, Ray shouting “YOLO.”

Gavin squeals something unintelligible too. 

Then the start signal sounds and he clambers toward the top. Jack is holding his rope at the bottom, the attendant holds another, and Ryan has another kid’s. Michael is thanking his lucky stars that Ryan’s not the one in charge of his safety. 

Michael’s feeling a sweat coming on because it’s like 102 degrees outside, but listening to Gavin screeching makes him grin in spite of it. He hears a bell ring shortly before he reaches the top of his section of wall and slaps his bell. He’s in second place so far. 

Michael repels down then his feet hit the grass. After Ryan’s kid repels down, he grabs his clipboard and writes down their times. 

“Okay,” he says. “You guys hold the top three times right now. After two more rounds of climbers go, we’ll announce the winners.” 

Michael rolls his eyes. Of course they have the top three times. They were the first three to go. 

He walks back over to a giddy Gavin. “You happy now?” he asks gruffly. 

Gavin nods. “Yes, ma’am.”

At the end of field day, the winners of each even are announced and the ribbons are doled out.

Caleb gets a ribbon for Ultimate Frisbee, his team having won. 

After many other kids who Michael doesn’t know receive their awards, the winners of the rock climbing competition are announced.

First place goes to the kid that beat Michael in the first round. Second place goes to someone else. Michael feels disappointed, even if he wasn’t expecting much, assuming he didn’t get third.

But Jack calls his name out. He managed to maintain a decent ranking even after two more rounds of campers went after him! 

He retrieves a yellow ribbon from Jack and brings it back to Gavin. 

Gavin is still clapping from his name being called a minute ago and his grin reaches from one side of his face to the other. 

Michael tosses the ribbon onto Gavin’s head. “Here, you keep it. To remember this summer camp experience,” Michael quips, putting finger air quotes around ‘summer camp experience.’

Gavin takes the ribbon and strokes it. “Thanks, Mikey Wikey. I’ll always remember this!” 

Ray peers over at Gavin’s blushing face with a hint of confusion but decides to let it go.

Three Days, Two Nights

Michael goes over to Gavin’s cabin and notices his purple lanyard and his yellow ribbon sitting on his pillow while Gavin yammers on about how when he goes back to England he’s getting a big mug and filling it to the brim with tea. It hurts Michael that it sounds almost like Gavin’s looking forward to it. 

After a while, Geoff comes in from his morning patrol and the two Americans teach Gavin to play Texas Hold ‘em, but they use Oreos instead of money. Gavin never quite figures it out.

Two Days, One Night.

They part ways tomorrow, Michael knows. They’ll never see each other again after tomorrow, Michael thinks. Facebook won’t fix it. Twitter won’t fix it. Skype won’t fix it. Michael realizes that they’ve only kissed once and after tomorrow they can never do it again. 

“Courage,” Michael mutters to himself, walking over to collect Gavin after breakfast, carrying with him a couple of bagged lunches he convinced Jack to steal for him. 

He knocks on Gavin’s door and the boy pops out, a grin on his face. 

Michael immediately takes him by the wrist and pulls him toward the woods. 

“Where are we going, Michael?” Gavin asks, his voice squeaking a bit.

“You’ll remember soon enough,” Michael replies. 

Behind the gym of Jock Camp, Michael recalls. It’s somewhere in that direction. 

After a good forty minutes of wandering, they come to it again. 

“It looks much different during this time of day, huh?” Michael points out, settling down on the edge of the cliff and patting a spot next to him. 

Gavin nods joining him.

“Well, Gavin, I don’t mean to be sentimental or anything, it’s just that, we go home tomorrow and…” Michael begins.

“I know,” Gavin cuts him off. He swallows audibly. Then, very quietly, he almost whispers, “I love you, Michael.”

Michael’s not quite sure if he heard him right, but he thinks Gavin just said those three very heavy words. They land on Michael’s heart like a sack of rocks. It’s painful, but beautiful at the same time. He doesn’t want to have to say goodbye tomorrow. 

Michael leans over and places a kiss on Gavin’s lips, quickly.

Gavin smirks. “I’m still not quite sure what to…”

Michael returns with another peck. “Don’t do anything,” he tells him. “Just, stay there.” 

A lazy morning is spent filled with lazy kisses. Michael’s never done this kind of thing before and Gavin sure as hell hasn’t either.

Around what they estimate to be noon, Michael pulls the sandwiches out of the bags and they have a picnic.

“Dammit,” Gavin says out of nowhere through a mouthful of half-chewed food. “Bloody, dammit.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Michael criticized. “But your butchering of the English language aside, what’s the matter?”

“It’s just unfair, is all. I mean, dammit. My first... guy. Why does he have to live across a damn ocean?”

“I know,” Michael mumbles, feeling dejected. “I thought if we really made our time together meaningful, it wouldn’t feel so shitty when the day came for us to leave. But alas, it is not the case.” 

Gavin leans over, resting his head on Michael’s shoulder. “I really wish we could stay here for another week.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” Michael sighs. “It’d still suck just as bad. Maybe even worse. I mean every f-ing minute it’s like… I realize I’m gonna miss this that much more.” Michael wishes he could just say it. I’ll miss you. I like you. I may even love you. 

Gavin wraps his arm around Michael’s waist. “There’s no other way that I would’ve liked to spend camp.”

“It’s a good thing you tripped on that first day,” Michael says nostalgically. “Otherwise, I might not have ever gone over to Sad Camp. We would never have met.”

“Damn,” Gavin breathes. “I’ve never been so happy that I fell in my life.”

Michael places a hand under Gavin’s chin and pulls him into another quick kiss. 

Gavin still looks just as flustered as he did after the very first time. “Hey, Michael?”

“Yeah, Gav?”

“Can I try something?” 

“Sure.”

Gavin gently grabs Michael’s face, a hand resting on either side of his freckled cheeks. He leans in, their lips connecting again. After a moment, Gavin’s tongue edges its way toward Michael mouth. Without resistance, Michael allows it. And for a solid minute, they neither one can escape from each other, but they wouldn’t want to anyway. 

When dinner time rolls around, they part ways, promising to meet up again afterwards.

After they eat, they wind up meeting in the middle of their two camps, as neither one could wait much longer. 

When Michael sees Gavin’s silhouette in the distance, he begins jogging toward him, meeting with a hug. “Why don’t you spend the night in out room?” Michael suggests. 

“I’ll go get my sleeping bag,” Gavin replies quickly, without even a moment’s hesitation, but Michael grabs his hand before he can take a step away from him.

“Just share mine.”

That night, they lie in Michael’s bed, arms wrapped tightly around each other. Ray and Caleb, despite wanting to tease and mock them, stay quiet in understanding. The last night is hard for all of them this year. 

Michael fights tears and tries to fall asleep. Gavin already has. But the freckled kid can’t keep his eyes closed. Every few minutes, his eyes will snap open, so he can catch just one more look at Gavin before falling asleep. His fluffy hair. His big stupid nose. His wonky grin, somehow present even while he sleeps. 

Michael knows everyone else is asleep. He could say it now. “Gavin, I love you,” his voice proclaims in the dark cabin, quietly, so as not to wake anyone.

A whisper calls back. “I know, Michael.”


	9. The Last Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gavin and Michael say their good byes.

The Last Day   
Michael wakes up to Gavin’s hair tickling his nose. With a disgruntled huff, he blows the hair away from his face. Now he sees the tranquil sleeping boy next to him. He smiles wryly at the sight, knowing that in a few short hours, he’ll be gone. 

Ray is already awake and out, his sleeping bag packed away, duffle bag zipped closed. Everything is in its own proper place. 

Michael shimmies out from under Gavin’s arm and sneaks to the dock where he knows Ray will be. 

Ray has his DS in hand, tapping buttons quietly, making little noise. Michael sits down beside him, dipping his bare feet into the water. 

“It’s different this year, Ray,” Michael mutters. 

Ray smirks knowingly. “I feel the same.”

“Courtney?”

Ray nods then shrugs. 

“Why’d we do this to ourselves?” Michael groans. “I hate myself for this.”

Ray shakes his head. “It’s worth it, man. You know it is.”

Michael thinks of that stupid crooked grin and floppy hair and squeaky giggle and those dumb questions and he can’t fight off his own smile. “Yeah, you’re right.” They sit together in silence, watching one more sunrise over the pond. “Well, I’d better get packing.”

Opening the door to the cabin, Michael is greeted by a groggy Gavin, who looks to have just sat up. “G’morning, love,” Gavin says in a raspy voice.

“Hi,” Michael replies.

Caleb makes an “ugh” sound from the top bunk. 

Gavin gets up and staggers toward Michael. “I need to go gather my gubbins,” Gavin tells him, a hint of bitterness in his still hoarse voice. 

“I hate your stupid made up words,” Michael comments, a half-smile teasing the corner of his mouth.

“No you don’t,” Gavin says, walking away. 

Michael catches his arm before he leaves the cabin. “I’ll meet you later, okay? Before you leave.”

Gavin nods. “Of course.”

With a sigh, Michael shuffles to his bed and begins shoving his clothes into his suitcase, taking little care in folding them. He rolls his sleeping bag up and makes a pile by his bed. He looks at how hollow their Barracuda cabin is becoming and he hates it. In years past, it indicated his triumphant removal from this hated camp, but this year, all he sees are painful goodbyes. He sits down uneasily on his lower bunk, fumbling with his fingers. He knows what will happen.

He has yearbooks to spare. He could pull one off the shelf and show you all the signatures from his so-called friends. “Keep in touch,” “we’ll have to hang out some time,” “text me,” they write. But the whole summer passes, and not a single contact from anyone of them. Part of it, he knows, is his own fault. If he gave a shit about any of them, maybe he would call them and they could play CoD together. Maybe he wouldn’t have all these people who seemed like great friends at the time forget about him completely.

What happened with Gavin, though, that must be real. That must be genuine. Michael wouldn’t forget about him. He would write him letters; he would video chat him online. But can the same be said for Gavin? Gavin, so far away, in England. It will be hard, undoubtedly, to maintain communication across an ocean and several time zones. It won’t come easy.

Michael shakes his head. It’ll be fine, he assures himself. 

Jack swings the door of his room open and saunters into the boys’ area of the cabin. “You all packed up?” he asks, in an obligatory way.

Michael nods. 

Caleb hops down from the top bunk and begins packing.

“Good,” Jack mumbles, leaving the cabin, perhaps in search of coffee.

After absent-mindedly watching Caleb pack his things, Michael leaves the cabin to find Gavin, who he assumes is packing up his things back in his cabin after having some breakfast.

He knocks on the doorframe and walks into Importance, Gavin’s cabin. The British teenager is scooping up handfuls of wrinkled clothes and shoving them into his suitcases haphazardly. He looks up through his falling hair to see Michael coming in the door. “Oh, hey. Would you give me a hand?”

Gavin sits on the suitcase and Michael latches it shut. 

“Thanks, love,” Gavin says, a hint of sadness in his voice.

“This sucks so bad,” Michael blurts. 

Gavin nods. “But we’ll write and stuff right?”

“Yeah, yeah. Of course.” Michael glances to the floor, unable to meet Gavin’s eyes. The buses should be pulling into camp soon. 

A tear starts to well up in Michael’s eye. He swallows hard, trying to shove it back in. 

Gavin clears his throat. “Hey, uh, Michael? When I go home, I won’t date any girls, probably, ya know?” 

“Yeah?” Michael inquires, looking up Gavin’s body to his face again. “How about dudes?”

Gavin shakes his head. “Not likely.”

“Because of me?”

Gavin shrugs.

“Me neither.” Michael tugs on the hem of his shirt awkwardly, looking down again. “So are, you… are we like… boyfriends?”

Gavin grins. “I think so.”

“Okay, cool… Cool.” 

“So… Like… How about we, um…” Gavin steps forwards and puts a hand around the back of Michael’s neck. 

Michael nods and leans forward. Knowing this will be the last for who knows how long, Michael tries to be as slow as possible, making sure to catch Gavin’s scent and to taste his lips. He puts a hand on Gavin’s back and one plays with his already messy hair. He can feel Gavin’s fingers dancing around under his shirt, just above the top of his jeans. 

They pull apart but stand close together for a minute, eyes locked and dilated. “Shit,” Michael mumbles.

“Yeah, I know,” Gavin agrees, breath tickling Michael’s face. 

A horn sounds outside the cabin. It’s Gavin’s bus waiting. 

“That’s for me,” Gavin states. 

“How about one more?” Michael pleads. 

Gavin obliges, connecting his lips to Michael’s. Michael places a hand of Gavin’s cheek. They pull away and Gavin grabs his suitcase.

“Bloody, damn it,” Gavin curses. “Michael, I love you, okay?”

“I know. I love you, too,” Michael assures him, his hands open vulnerably at his sides. “You better f-ing write me and Skype me and come back to camp next year.”

“Alright, Michael.” Gavin nods genuinely, his dumb smile making one last appearance before he walks out the door. Michael walks outside and watches the stumbling, quirky, British orphan, his boyfriend, climb onto the bus and turn around to wave. Michael hears the pounding of footsteps to his side as Ray jogs up, winded, followed by Caleb. The three boys watch as the Sad Camp bus, with the word Hope scrawled on the side, pulls away from the camp and disappears just as soon as it had arrived, waving and trying not to cry.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long distance relationship never work out.

Michael’s been back at home for a week now and has held up his promise to have Ray over for X-Box. Gavin attended virtually via Skype. Ray, honestly in support of their relationship, even started to get a little grossed out by the consistent flirting, but he kept quiet. 

Michael now holds a letter in his hand from England. The postage must’ve been expensive. He tears the envelope open and a photo falls out. He picks it up off the floor of his bedroom. Gavin sent him a picture of himself and a dark haired boy holding camera equipment. The back of the photo has the words, “Dan says hi, and also, ‘will you shut the hell up about Michael?’” written on it. Michael smirks, pulling out the letter. 

_Hey, Michael._

_It’s been a hell of a week in a lot of ways. I may have a surprise for you soon, but maybe not. Anyway, Dan and I filmed another short film. It’s about vegetables. You’d probably hate it, but I made it, so you’d pretend to like it. Well, actually, probably not, you bastard._

_Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about you. I know you seemed kinda worried that last week of camp that I’d forget all about you once I was back in England. It’s just not the case, though. I want to smoosh your stupid face and stuff. But until I can do that, I’ll just have to be satisfied by Skyping you and seeing your pretty little digital head._

_Well, I don’t know what else to say._

_Tickles._

_Gavin_

_P.S. suck my knob. <3_

Michael smiles at the horrendous hand writing and the naughty post script. 

Time passes and school starts again. Michael and Gavin have been writing letters back and forth to each other and video chatting online once a week. In a lot of ways, it’s like camp and nothing’s changed. But in more ways, everything’s different. Michael just wishes he could see Gavin in person again and kiss his stupid face and have his classmates believe him when he tells them he’s got a British significant other that he met at camp. 

As the school year drags on, Michael has less and less time to video chat and write letters. He receives a few unprompted letters from Gavin before they stop coming all together. The yearbook effect starts to set in. 

As girls begin flirting with Michael, he almost forgets he has a boyfriend. He wonders if Gavin has the same thing happening to him. 

After a month or so of not talking to him, Michael attempts a Skype call. A sleepy Gavin answers. “Michael, I was just about to go to bed,” Gavin tells him, rubbing his eyes. “It’s midnight.”

Michael smacks his face in humiliation. “Right, f-ing time zones.” 

Gavin smirks at the freckled boy. “Why haven’t you called in a while?”

“Classwork and all that,” Michael whines apologetically

Gavin pushes his hair back. “I’ve been worried. I thought maybe you had…”

“No!” Michael shouts at the shirtless Brit on the other end of the connection. “You haven’t, have you?”

Gavin shakes his head emphatically. “No, I’d not…”

Michael sighs in relief. “I’m so sorry. I suck.”

“S’okay. Just don’t let another whole month pass before talking to me again.”

“Right, I promise.”

Michael breaks the promise, though. Gavin calls him next. Apologies exchanged and accepted. But it keeps happening. Time and time again. The thread binding them together is either forgotten or weakened and they know they can’t be mad about it. There’s an ocean between them. It’s not the same. It’s not easy like camp is. They don’t see each other every day. There are more romantic options. They never cheat, no. But they come close, both of them. 

Michael is hanging out with some friends at the movies. Caleb, Ray, and Courtney, who has come into town to visit, and a girl from class, who everyone knows has a huge crush on Michael. 

After the movie ends, she takes his hand. Ray notices and shakes his head warningly at Michael. But one look at Courtney and Ray together and Michael remembers his own camp love. He releases her hand and excuses himself to go home. 

It’s midnight Saturday. Surely Gavin’s not awake at six in the morning on his side of the pond. So Michael waits a few hours, staring at the little bubble next to Gavin’s name until it turns green and sees that Gavin’s online. He makes a frantic call. How long has it been since they talked? 

Gavin picks up. “Michael, really? Is it you,” a bitter voice answers. “I thought I was hallucinating.”

“Gavin, I’m so happy to hear your stupid accent.”

“Yeah? You know you could hear it more often.”

Michael nods. “Yeah, I know. But…”

“Classwork and all that?” Gavin mocks. “Yeah, I know. I got it too.”

“Are you mad at me?” Michael asks, fighting down some of his own frustration.

“Yes!” Gavin shouts, raising his voice. “Well, no actually. It’s my fault, too.” 

Michael holds his breath for a minute before he decides to speak. “I still like you,” he says.

“Yeah, but you used to love me,” Gavin points out.

“Well, I still—”

“Don’t tell me you still do. We both know that’s not true. People in love call more than once a month.” Gavin doesn’t even sound mad. The yearbook effect isn’t that angering. It’s more disappointing than anything. 

“I still care about you, though.”

“I care about you too, but it’s not fair for us to keep each other like this!”

“Yeah, so are we…?”

“I think so. I mean, you should find a nice bird to date and I could too, maybe.”

“I don’t know if I want to,” Michael mutters, tears filling his eyes. The rollercoaster spent a month going up and six going down. “I still have that Christmas card you sent me hanging on the wall by my bed.” 

Gavin winces. “I still have that lanyard you made me hanging ‘round my neck.” Gavin holds it up like a noose. 

“Shit,” Michael mutters. 

“I know,” Gavin replies. 

“Well, it’s like four in the morning, so…” Michael knows tears are coming soon and he wants to spare his pride and Gavin from seeing that pathetic sight.

“Yeah, I know. I’ve got my own things to do. There’s been a lot going on lately, so… I’ll um…” Gavin rubs the back of his head, pixelated in Michael’s view. He’s still cute, even if he’s only comprised of a few blurry squares.

Michael’s tears fall down his cheeks as he manages to choke out a few more words: “Yeah, goodbye.”

Bloop. Call ended.


	11. The Fourth of July

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey-o.

Michael’s grades plummet, but he manages to squeak some C’s to finish out his junior year of high school. The past few months haven’t been as fun as he’d like. He always figured he’d be the kind of guy to get over a break up quickly and easily. But they’ve been apart as long as they were ever together and it still stings. Maybe he’s still disappointed in himself that every prediction that could be made on their relationship came true. Summer camp relationships never last, teen love is fleeting, long distance never works. 

It’s been a while since he’s talked to Gavin, but he hasn’t gone out with any girls. He can’t bring himself to. He’s wanted to a few times, but he always changes his mind. As much as he hates to admit it, he’s still hung up on that one summer love he had. Michael kicks himself over it continuously. 

Ray’s tried to help Michael deal with it, but it never really changes anything. 

School’s ended. In a month and a few weeks, he and Ray and Caleb would be headed off to camp again. He wonders if Gavin will be there this year. He hopes, but knows how hard it was for him to come to camp last time, all the car washes and what not. Besides, it seemed kind of like a onetime deal. And who even knows if the orphan camp would happen at the same time as the month he decided to go. So many variables. He’s never going to see or hear from Gavin again except for through vague Facebook statuses, he thinks. 

And what an awful way that is to experience someone; through vague blurbs and cheerful pictures taken with friends. You can’t be with them, so you just have to watch them live the highlight reel of their life while you are miles away from them. 

Michael spends most of June playing X-Box with Ray and Caleb and occasionally Jack, who plays online. It’s boring but Michael prefers this to going to camp without Gavin. Even though he’d been more times without him than with him, camp and Gavin are forever linked in his mind. It wouldn’t be right without him.

It’s the fourth of July, Independence Day. Michael hears the loud booms of fireworks outside his house, but he ignores them the best he can. It’s funny that on the day that the US celebrates its freedom from England, he can’t stop thinking about that particular British boy. He’ll be leaving for camp in a few days, and it’ll sting so bad to be in those woods again without Gavin. “Damn it,” he curses, looking at various pictures Gavin had sent him over those six months scattered on the desk in his room. 

The last he had talked to Gavin was right after school let out on Facebook. Michael had desperately tried to contact him, just to hear from him one more time. 

_Gavin, what’s up? Haven’t chatted in a while. Anything new?_

After a day or so, he got a reply.

 _Glad to hear from you, Michael. I’ve been going through a lot of changes lately, but I’m still good. I just turned seventeen, you know._

Michael’s heart fluttered when he read that Gavin was glad to hear from him. 

_Yeah? What’s changed?_

Gavin typed back relatively soon. 

_Just this and that._

And that had been it, he didn’t hear anything else from him. Michael leans back onto his bed thinking what he could’ve meant, turning it over in his mind.

As he lies there thinking, his mother calls up the stairs. “Michael, someone’s hear for you!” 

Probably Ray, Michael guesses, shoving himself off of his bed. Ray had been known to walk over to his house before. It’s definitely not out of the question.

When Michael reaches the bottom of the stairs, though, he sees a different face.

Gavin’s. 

“What the he—heck,” Michael stutters, seeing his mother standing confusedly by the door.

“Hi, Michael,” Gavin says in that unmistakably British voice. Michael wants to pinch himself—he must be dreaming. 

Gavin looks incredible, almost glowing with a toothy grin spread across his face and his hand waving to Michael, still frozen on the stairs. 

Michael manages to squeak something out. “Hey, Gavin.” 

Michael’s mother looks like she suddenly understands who the gangly teen in her foyer is. She leaves the two of them to get back to her busy work.

After a moment of staring, Michael hustles down the remaining stairs. “What the shit are you doing here?!” Michael exclaims excitedly. “Are you here for camp?”

“Well, I suppose I am going to camp, but um… That’s not why I’m at your house. Not really.”

“Then, why?”

“I live here now. In Austin.”

“H-how?” 

“I’ve been adopted,” Gavin answers, a happy chuckle escaping him. “I didn’t think it was possible, but here I am!”

“Who? What?”

“Do you remember Geoff?” Gavin asks. “He really likes me, so…” He rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet.

“Shit! How’d that go down so fast? I mean, like isn’t international adoption supposed to take like a f-ing eternity?” Michael feels himself practically vibrating with excitement. 

“Well, obviously, I already had a passport. And since I’m so old, they kind of expedited the process. Geoff and his wife were busting their bloody humps since the day camp was over to get me here. Remember that surprise I told you about? Yeah this is it.” Gavin smiles widely. “Let’s not talk about that though, okay? Can we talk about…”

Michael pushes Gavin backwards out of his front door. He closes the door behind him. He sees Geoff in his car out in the street, messing with the radio in his car. “He drove you here?”

“Well, I sure couldn’t walk all the way from Geoff’s—my house—to yours.” 

Michael grabs Gavin’s wrist and pulls him around to the side of the house. 

“Michael!” Gavin squeaks, with a pleased look on his face.

“Gavin, have you dated anyone in the past seven months?” Michael demands.

“No, I really couldn’t see the point in that as the adoption process was going on,” Gavin answers, staring at Michael who leans against the house.

“Well, did you want to?” Michael asks.

“Yes, I did,” Gavin says with a sad look settling onto his brow.

“Oh.” Michael looks to his hands. “I get it.”

“No, you don’t! It’s you, ya donut!” Gavin shouts, shoving Michael’s shoulder. “It’s always been you!” 

“What?!” Michael spits back. “I thought you hated me.”

“No! Look!” Gavin reaches into his shirt and pulls out the purple lanyard. “I never took it off.”

Michael is dazed. It’s been a year, but somehow the camp relationship found a way. He pulls Gavin in for a kiss. It’s quick and rushed, but still perfect.

Gavin blushes. “Michael, does this mean we’re back on?”

Michael nods emphatically. “Of course, you moron. We’re back on.”

Gavin giggles, pulling Michael in for a hug.

“Ray’s going to be so shocked when he sees you at camp,” Michael remarks with a grin, leaning back to look at Gavin’s face.

Gavin beams back, the corner of his lip turned up in delight. “I can’t wait.”


End file.
